Beach Rebuilding Brouhaha

Texas Lawmaker Carves Exception Benefiting Own House
In the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, beachfront homeowners whose
property was damaged or destroyed face a special limitation on
rebuilding. If the storm eroded the beach, it also may have eroded
their free title to the property. Under the state's Open Beaches
Act, property owners may not build on a public beach. And when the
land moves, so does the public beach.
People who buy beachfront property are warned in big letters in
purchase and sale documents of the risk they run that the ocean may
take back their land. But it's a little different if you're a state
legislator. According to the Houston Chronicle story, "Battle for
a beach," by Harvey Rice and Matt Stiles, Texas State
Representative Wayne Christian, on the last day of this year's
legislative session, inserted language about beachfront rebuilding
into a broader bill addressing recovery from Hurricane Ike.
Christian's provision exempts a stretch of Bolivar Peninsula beach
from the restrictions of the Open Beaches Act. Not by coincidence,
critics charge, that particular stretch of beach includes the land,
and the bare foundation pilings, where Christian's own beachfront
second home stood before the storm.
Under the Texas Constitution, laws that benefit just one
locality are prohibited: All new laws must be written to apply to
the whole state. Christian got around that technicality, the
Chronicle reports, by not mentioning the Bolivar peninsula by name
in his amendment. Instead, he wrote the exemption to apply to
houses "on a peninsula in a county with more than 250,000
population and less than 251,000 population." "The only area
fitting that description," notes the Chronicle, "is Bolivar."

Houses stand on badly damaged beachfront
landin the aftermath of Hurricane Ike in
September of last year. Some land may now be legally unbuildable
under the Texas Open Beaches Act, because the public beach has
encroached onto home sites. (PHOTO BY Jocelyn
Augustino, FEMA)
Texas Land Commissioner Patterson, whose job includes
administering the Open Beaches Act, held a rally and press
conference on the Bolivar beach to protest Christian's amendment.
Patterson vowed not to enforce the measure if it passed, saying
that it's indefensible in court. Reaction in the Texas press has
been overwhelmingly negative, as exemplified by editorials in the
Austin American-Statesman ("Perry,
wave self-serving bill aside"), the Dallas Morning News (letter
to the editor, "No
exceptions for beach houses," By Ellis Pickett), the Houston
Chronicle ("Beach
brou-haha boils over," by Lisa Falkenberg), and the Galveston
County Daily News ("Governor
should veto beach rules," by Heber Taylor). (Nearby Galveston,
by the way, which saw considerable beachfront destruction and beach
erosion, is not included in Representative Christian's
exemption.)
Representative Christian, meanwhile, defended his amendment and
his stance in an editorial on the Texas Weekly's "Soapbox" page
("Rep. Wayne Christian: It's a Property Rights
Thing"). Wrote Christian, "My constituents adamantly believe it
is wrong for the 'Big Brother' State to take their private property
away from them unnecessarily."
Texas Governor Rick Perry, after a series of ambivalent
statements, decided finally to allow the bill containing the
Christian amendment to go into effect — but without his
signature, reports the Houston Chronicle here ("Perry
allows exemption to rebuild beach houses," by Peggy Fikac).
Vetoing the entire bill would have undone other measures the bill
contained, including a provision allowing homeowners to take a
"homestead" tax deduction on their state income taxes for two years
while their homes are being rebuilt.
“I want to protect the rights of property owners while
ensuring that the state’s beaches remain open for the public
to use and enjoy,” Perry said in a statement about the
measure. But the Governor added, "The provision affecting the Texas
Open Beaches Act is vague, broad and incomplete, and will likely
result in litigation between homeowners and the state."
And Land Commissioner Patterson repeated his intention not to
enforce the provision allowing Christian (and other Bolivar
residents) to rebuild before Patterson has determined where the new
"line of vegetation" demarking the public beach now lies, post-Ike
— which Patterson said could take 18 months to two years, as
dunes and grasses re-establish themselves. Said Patterson,
"“It will be the policy of the Texas General Land Office that
notwithstanding the Christian amendment, no structure will be
rebuilt if it will interfere with the public right to access Texas
beaches."